Flip the table and divide the family property! Take his wife and daughter into the mountains and eat

Ergaizi paused, glanced down at his tattered white shirt, and gave a guilty tug at the corner of his mouth, but still forced a smile and shouted:

"Alright! Look at you, so stingy and miserly!"

"It's just a set of clothes and a pair of broken glasses. Do you think I'd renege on my debt?!"

"I'll compensate you!"

"I'll go to the supply and marketing cooperative in town first thing tomorrow morning and get you a new set of polyester clothing, and a pair of identical sunglasses, okay?!"

The fat on Da Zhuang's face finally relaxed, his anger subsided considerably, and he tossed the flashlight in his hand:

"You're the one who pounded your chest so hard, I didn't hold a knife to your throat and force you."

"Okay, okay! I'll get it done for you tomorrow!"

Ergaizi waved his hands impatiently, wanting to get this over with as quickly as possible:

"She's so slow and fussy, even more talkative than the old women in the village who sew shoe soles."

"Damn it! You bastard, you ruined my new clothes and they look like a rag, and now you're complaining that I talk too much?!"

Da Zhuang raised his thick rubber boot and was about to kick him in the butt.

Erga Zi's eyelids twitched, his body shifted, and he quickly hopped half a step away from the haystack next to him as if his feet were greased.

The night wind rustled the wild grass. Da Zhuang kicked at empty air, and by the moonlight and the beam of his flashlight, he pointed at Er Gai Zi, who was hiding to the side, and laughed and cursed:

"You hid pretty fast! Come on, let's get back to the village!"

"Look at you, you look like you've been ripped out of your wits. Tonight I'm going to give you a couple of strong drinks to really bring you back to life!"

Erga Zi, his arms stiff and hunched, sniffed his red, frozen nose and weakly replied:

"It's the middle of the night, the supply and marketing cooperative and the village store are already locked up, where are we going to get alcohol?"

Da Zhuang chuckled, leaned forward, poked his lower back with the head of his flashlight, and whispered with a wink:

"Didn't your dad secretly buy that jar of strong liquor before last year's Lunar New Year, and bury it under the woodpile in your backyard all this time?"

Erga was stunned and looked at him blankly.

Da Zhuang grinned widely and slapped Er Gai Zi hard on the shoulder:

"What are you standing there for? Hurry up and go back to get a shovel and dig it out! I'm going to the village entrance now to call my uncle and aunt and tell them to stop wandering around in the muddy ditch."

Da Zhuang strode forward two steps, then turned back and yelled at Er Gai Zi:

"I still have half a pot of sauerkraut stew with pork cracklings simmering in my big iron pot at home! Hurry up and get the liquor out and take it to my house. If I don't get you drunk tonight, all this Dacron I'm wearing will have been for nothing! You hear me?!"

Ergaizi was slapped so hard by Dazhuang that he stumbled, rolled his eyes, and cursed irritably:

"Damn, do you have a dog's nose? You still remember last year's old scum!"

"Nonsense! I can remember the smell of alcohol for a lifetime!"

Da Zhuang laughed heartily, shook the flashlight in his hand, turned around, and strode towards the village entrance. His rough voice carried far on the night wind:

"Hurry up! If you haven't even managed to get a single drink out of me by the time I bring Uncle and Aunt home, you're in for a good beating from your dad tonight!"

As Ergazi watched Dazhuang's swaying flashlight beam disappear into the distance, the smile on his face gradually faded.

The night wind blew across the wasteland again, chilling to the bone.

Erga Zi put his frozen hands into his pockets, found the icy house key, took a deep breath, and strode quickly toward his yard in the darkness.

Back in my own backyard, it was pitch black.

Erga Zi skillfully retrieved a rusty shovel from the corner of the west room and crouched down to crawl next to the woodpile.

The moonlight stretched his shadow long and thin.

He stepped on the hard soil beneath his feet and, following the boundary that Dazhuang had indicated, plunged a shovel deep into the ground.

"Snap!"

The frozen soil was shoveled away, and with the earthy smell of soil, a few shovelfuls later, the iron blade struck the hard earthenware pot with a clang.

Ergazi threw down his shovel, squatted down, and used his hands to clear away the loose soil around him, pulling out the jar of liquor covered in red cloth and wet mud.

The soil was cold, and the jar felt heavy.

Erga Zi sat by the woodpile, clutching a wine jar. In the pale moonlight, he couldn't help but recall the shattered porcelain scattered all over the ground at the Liu family's house in Xiakanzi Village, and Liu Cuier's icy eyes.

He shook his head vigorously, gritted his teeth, brushed the mud off the mouth of the jar, stood up with the jar in his arms, and strode towards Dazhuang's yard.

……

The gate to Dazhuang's courtyard was ajar, and a warm yellow light shone through the crack.

Erga Zi kicked open the wooden door and stepped into the outer room. A strong, domineering aroma of roasted sausage mixed with the pungent spiciness of dried chili peppers suddenly wafted towards him from the stove.

The firewood in the stove crackled and popped, illuminating half the room.

Da Zhuang stood shirtless in front of the iron pot, holding a large spatula in his hand, scraping the bottom of the pot with a "crackling" sound. The thinly sliced ​​sausages in the pot were being fried over high heat, sizzling and oozing oil, their edges curling up, clearly showing the red and white colors, and glistening.

"Wow, you're pretty quick!"

Da Zhuang turned his head and saw the mud jar that Er Ga Zi was holding. His eyes lit up, and he began to work even more vigorously with the spatula in his hand.

"Quickly put the wine jar on the kang table! My main dish will be ready soon!"

Erga Zi put the wine jar down, patted the dry mud off his hands, sniffed, and looked at the iron pot with some puzzlement:

"Where did you get these sausages? The supply and marketing cooperative hasn't sold these things for ages."

Dazhuang poured the chopped green garlic shoots into the pot, and with a "sizzle," a large cloud of pungent and enticing white steam rose up. He grinned widely and chuckled.

"It's from Shanhe's house! Shanhe's wife is an amazing cook. A few days ago, she asked someone to get her some good pork, and she made her own dried sausages with plenty of seasoning!"

Dazhuang stir-fried the sausages in the pot until they were glistening and tempting, making him smack his lips with envy.

"Yesterday, Brother Shanhe asked me to talk to him about something. It just so happened that Sister-in-law Shanhe was at home cleaning up these sausages. Before she left, she insisted on giving me two pieces so I could take them back and try them."

"I haven't been able to bring myself to cut one yet, I'm thinking of cutting it when I go to the city in a couple of days."

As Dazhuang spoke, he tapped the spatula against the edge of the iron pot twice, then turned and glanced at Ergaizi.

"You got off easy today, kid."

As they were talking, Dazhuang deftly ladled a large bowl full of fragrant and oily stir-fried garlic sprouts and sausages, then brought out the previously warmed sauerkraut stew with pork cracklings onto the kang (heated brick bed), and casually took out half a plate of fried peanuts from the cupboard.

"What are you standing there for? Get on the kang!"

Da Zhuang plopped down cross-legged and roughly ripped off the red cloth cover from the wine jar, instantly filling the room with the pungent aroma of strong liquor.

He picked up the jar and poured it full into two large, chipped, rough porcelain bowls on the table, the clear wine shimmering under the lamplight.

Da Zhuang picked up one of the bowls and, in a gruff voice, tossed it at Er Ga Zi:

"Come on! Let's have a good drink to clear our minds and swallow all that embarrassing stuff from Xiakanzi Village today!"

Erga Zi didn't hesitate. He took off his yellow rubber shoes, which were covered in wet mud, and obediently climbed onto the heated kang.

He reached out and picked up the large, chipped, rough porcelain bowl, slamming it against the rough bowl in Da Zhuang's hand with a dull thud.

Without saying a word, he raised his neck and took a big bite right up to the rim of the bowl!

"Glug, glug—"

The fiery and pungent liquor was like a red-hot molten iron, rushing down the esophagus and scalding deep into the stomach.

"Cough...cough cough!"

Ergaizi was so agitated by the pungent odor that he coughed violently, and tears welled up in his eyes.

He slammed the half-empty wine bowl onto the kang table with a thud, and vigorously wiped the foam from the corner of his mouth with his sleeve.

The strong alcohol exploded in my internal organs, and a scalding heat surged up my spine to the top of my head. My originally pale and bluish cheeks gradually turned into a sickly flush.

"Slow down! Who the hell is taking it from you?!"

Da Zhuang grinned and picked up two greasy sausage slices, stuffing them directly into Er Gai Zi's mouth. He then poured himself a full bowl.

"Eat up! Sister Shanhe's sausages are so juicy and flavorful! Tonight, let's finish this whole jar of liquor and we'll worry about whatever happens tomorrow!"

With two slices of sausage stuffed in his mouth, Ergaizi grimaced from the heat and mumbled a curse:

"Big Zhuang, are you feeding a pig? You're shoving it into my mouth when it's so hot!"

"Eat it or don't, it's up to you!"

"Of course I'd eat such good meat!"

Erga grabbed his chopsticks and stuffed a large mouthful of garlic sprouts and sausage directly into his mouth from the large bowl.

"Um!"

"You know what, it really smells good!"

"Of course!"

Da Zhuang grinned smugly and picked up a piece of food with his chopsticks.

The two ate while casually clinking their wine bowls together.

There wasn't anything serious to say.

One minute they'd be cursing about clothes, the next they'd be talking about when the brick houses at Da Niu's house would be finished, and then they'd be talking about how someone's piglets had broken through the fence a few days ago and made a mess of half the vegetable garden.

The liquor in the jar gradually sank deeper.

The sausages in the large bowl were gradually emptied, leaving only a layer of oily garlic sprouts and chili peppers.

By the middle of the night, the firewood in the stove had burned into a pile of dark red charcoal.

Ergazi sat cross-legged against the wall, his face flushed from drinking, still holding half a bowl of wine in his hand.

He stared at the sloshing wine in the bowl for a while, then suddenly spoke:

"Big Zhuang Brother."

"Um?"

Dazhuang was shelling peanuts, without even looking up.

Erga asked:

"Tell me... am I a good person?"